


Rebuilding the Rebellion

by reylly_obiwan



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Movie: Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Star Wars: The Last Jedi Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-01-11
Packaged: 2019-03-03 09:56:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13338792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reylly_obiwan/pseuds/reylly_obiwan
Summary: The afterthoughts of The Last Jedi, as told by each of the characters.





	Rebuilding the Rebellion

Poe gazed longingly out the window of the  _ Falcon _ , if only to get a brief glimpse of something less depressing than what was going on inside the ship. 

Finn was asleep next to Rose’s bedside, where he’d been since they’d escaped Crait. Leia was in the cockpit with Chewie. He didn’t know whether to leave her alone or comfort her. She had just lost her brother. What comfort could he even offer? He didn’t have any wise words for someone who had been through ten million more struggles than he had. Everyone else was either asleep or crying, or injured. Despite them being together, safe on the ship, safe from the First Order, Poe felt so alone. They had just escaped nearly impossible odds. They should be celebrating, or at least hopeful. But there was too much to grieve for any positive feelings. Even having BB-8 by his side wasn’t enough to brighten his mood. How did everything go to shit so fast?

In less than 24 hours their entire sense of security and stability had been destroyed. It felt like years ago that he had faced that damn Dreadnaught. Back when they had a cruiser, an entire fleet, and a bombing squad. Now they had nothing.  _ Nothing _ . He couldn’t help but feel that it was his fault. What if he hadn’t sent the bomb squad in? Would it have actually made a difference? The First Order would have still tracked them. They still would have run out of fuel. Kylo-Ren would still have blown up their fleet. Would they have ended up annihilated no matter what? Poe continued searching for hope among the stars. There were too many questions without answers and people to mourn. He looked down at his droid and sighed.

“How do we rebuild the rebellion from this?” he asked.

***

Rey realized she had been gripping the pieces of Luke’s lightsaber for hours. It was useless now. She had no idea how to build a lightsaber and she doubted she could learn but looking at the broken one in front of her. The last few hours seemed unreal to her. Just before all this, she had been full of hope. She thought she was beginning to break down Luke’s boundaries. She thought he was going to teach her how to be a jedi. But he had given up on them. And then she ignored his advice and put her faith in Kylo-Ren. What was she thinking? If only she had been wiser, she might have known Snoke was the one behind their force connection. She had truly believed Kylo would change. Had he? She felt so unequipped to answer these questions. But who was to guide her now? She kept bouncing from leader to leader. Han Solo, Luke, Leia.

Leia. She didn’t know how she was holding it together. She lost so many people in such a short time. Admiral Holdo, for one. So many people that were under her leadership were dead. Not to mention her brother. Rey felt so much hurt in her heart for everything Leia had lost. She’d heard from Finn that no one had answered their distress signals, either.    
Leia must’ve felt like the entire galaxy had turned their backs on her. Rey finally put down the broken weapon in her hands and looked around. She’d never seen such a display of hopelessness and despair. And she was from Jakku. She sighed, to herself mostly, and whispered, “How do we rebuild the rebellion from this?”

***

Finn took a quick glance away from Rose to see what everyone else was up to. Poe was staring out the window. Rey was  _ still _ staring at Luke’s broken lightsaber. And he was still at his post, looking after Rose. Why the hell had she stopped him? It didn’t matter to him anymore that he hadn’t been able to stop their weapon. They were safe now, so what difference did it make? What did matter, though, was that Rose was hurt because of him. He knew he should’ve listened to Poe when he ordered the retreat, but something snapped inside of him. He felt like he could actually get some retribution if he could just shut down that cannon. And now here they were. He had let his hate and impulsivity destroy something so precious. Rose was nearly dead, the First Order had destroyed most of the Rebellion, and Finn was no closer to getting his revenge. He thought that killing Phasma would bring him closure. He thought that by ending her life, he could finally put his past behind him. But instead, it gave him a much more sickening realization. With every day he spent away from the First Order, he grew to resent them even more. No matter how much of their army he destroyed or how many important people he killed, it would never be enough to make it up to him. They stole his entire  _ life _ . He didn’t know what the hell he was doing because he grew up without feelings, all because of those bastards. Now he was overwhelmed with them. Sorrow for Rose and love for Poe and so much heartache for Leia. Poe cursed the First Order with every breath he took. He felt sick when he thought about their odds now. They weren’t good before, and that was when they still had a decent battalion. Finn knew what the First Order was capable of. He knew that Ren and Hux would stop at nothing to finish them off. He couldn’t share in everyone else’s relief because he was an inside man. He knew the full capabilities of those beasts. Finn doubted survival. Cynical, yes, but he didn’t know how to be anything else. He doubted any one of them would be alive much longer, and he more fearfully doubted that Rose wouldn’t even make it through the night. He took her hand and looked at her peaceful face.

“Rose, how do we rebuild the rebellion from this?”

***

Leia sat up straight, eyes ahead, next to her old Wookiee companion. She tried not to look at anything in particular because she felt that at a moment’s notice, she would fall apart. There were no words to describe the way she felt. 

No words for the way her heart had been shattered eight million separate times in the last day. No words for how much she wanted to break down crying when she thought about all the people who had died under her command. She felt the weight of the thousands of deaths on her shoulders. People who she hadn’t even known were gone and it was destroying her. 

And the people that she did know, well, that was a whole other level of grief. 

Leia thought back on her friendship with Amilyn Holdo. Their relationship had been decades in the making. When they met as teenagers on Alderaan Leia knew she had a friend for life. Amilyn was her soul sister. They didn’t just bond over their political morals and desires for social justice. They found something they needed in each other. Stability and love in their otherwise chaotic lives. As politicians, there were few the two of them could trust. But they could always come back to each other, year after year, and share stories without fear of judgement. Something that Amilyn had said to her right before she died was still sticking with Leia. 

“You taught me how.”

Leia hoped that her years of friendship with Amilyn had taught her more than how to deal with death. She knew, of course, that there was more sentiment behind it. But all she wished for now were those carefree, teenage days with her best friend.

Leia risked a glance over at Chewie and immediately regretted it. Chewbacca was currently the only symbol of her old life. Never mind she was aboard her dead husband’s ship. Chewie was a living beacon of what she had lost. He was a reminder of those battles years ago that had brought down the Empire. The fight that lead her to the love of her life, to her brother.

Her brother. 

Leia cursed the universe silently. Could she not have a second to recover from the death of her husband before her brother died too? Could there not be a _ single  _ second to breathe? She hadn’t even been able to process that Han was gone. She certainly couldn’t think about who had killed him. And now Luke was with him. Both of them free on the other side of this life while she was left to fight the real battles. 

She thought about the other passengers of the ship. Most of them weren’t even alive when she and her crew were blowing up Death Stars. She looked at Chewie again and felt her heart ache. He was all that was left. No more Amilyn, no more Han, no more Luke. No more troops from Yavin 4. No more Lando. No more of the people she’d lived through the greater part of the Rebellion with. There was no one left alive who felt the effects of forty years of fighting as she did. The fresh faces of the Rebellion now certainly had spirit. Spunk. Passion. But they were fresh faced for a reason. Not even Poe, who she loved as family, could understand what it was like to keep hope alive when when the world continuously tried to end it. Year after year, loss after loss, and somehow she still stood. 

Despite what she had lost, Leia held onto the hope inside of her. But she felt so alone.

She couldn’t fathom what to do next. She couldn’t begin to think of a plan or give some inspiring speech to the kids sitting outside the cockpit. She knew that as always she would get back up and keep fighting. But it was going to take a little bit more this time. Given the circumstances, it was going to be a while before Leia regained the spark of hope inside her.

An old argument between her and Han popped into her head and she laughed. It took place nearly twenty years ago when Ben was a young boy. She and Han had been arguing about something and Ben had chimed in with, “Dad, there’s no way she can win this argument.”   
Han looked at her and gave a sigh of defeat. 

“Son, if anyone can do it, it’s her.”

She cherished the words of her late husband. She needed them now more than ever.    
“If anyone can do it, it’s her.” The fight would not go out inside her. She put a hand on Chewie’s arm and he looked up. 

“We  _ will _ rebuild the rebellion from this.” 


End file.
